explosions, but the accounts had been so meager that I had not realized
that there was anything especially unusual about them, for it was at
the time when accidents in and attacks on the munitions-plants were of
common occurrence.
"Why," went on MacLeod, "the whole business is as mysterious as if
there were some phantom destroyer at work! The men are so frightened
that they threaten to quit. Several have been killed. There's something
strange about that, too. There are ugly rumors of poisonous gases being
responsible, quite as much as the explosions, though, so far, I've been
able to find nothing in that notion."
"What sort of place is it?" asked Kennedy, interested at once.
"Well, you see," explained MacLeod, "since the company's business has
increased so fast lately, it has been forced to erect a new plant.
Perhaps you have heard of the Old Grove Amusement Park, which failed?
It's not far from that."
MacLeod looked at us inquiringly, and Kennedy nodded to go on, though I
am sure neither of us was familiar with the place.
"They've called the new plant Nitropolis--rather a neat name for a
powder-works, don't you think?" resumed MacLeod. "Everything went along
all right until a few days ago. Then one of the buildings, a
storehouse, was blown up. We couldn't be sure that it was an accident,
so we redoubled our precautions. It was of no use. That started it. The
very next day another building was blown up, then another, until now
there have been five of them. What may happen to-day Heaven only knows!
I want to get back as soon as I can."
"Rather too frequent, I must admit, to be coincidences," remarked
Kennedy.
"No; they can't all be accidents," asserted MacLeod, confidently.
"There's too great regularity for that. I think I've considered almost
everything. I don't see how they can be from bombs placed by workmen.
At least, it's not a bit likely. Besides, the explosions all occur in
broad daylight, not at night. We're very careful about the men we
employ, and they're watched all the time. The company has a guard of
its own, twenty-five picked men, under me--all honorably discharged
United States army men."
"You have formed no theory of your own?" queried Kennedy.
MacLeod paused, then drew from his pocket the clipping of a despatch
from the front in which one of the war correspondents reported the
destruction of wire entanglements with heat supposed to have been
applied by the use of reflecting mirrors.
"I'm reduced to pure speculation," he remarked. "To-day they seem to be
reviving all the ancient practices. Maybe some one is going at it like
Archimedes."
"Not impossible," returned Craig, handing back the clipping. "Buffon
tested the probability of the achievement of Archimedes in setting fire
to the ships of Marcellus with mirrors and the sun's rays. He
constructed a composite mirror of a hundred and twenty-eight plane
mirrors, and with it he was able to ignite wood at two hundred and ten
feet. However, I shrewdly suspect that, even if this story is true,
they are using hydrogen or acetylene flares over there. But none of
these things would be feasible in your case. You'd know it."
"Could it be some one who is projecting a deadly wireless force which
causes the explosions?" I put in, mindful of a previous case of
Kennedy's. "We all know that inventors have been working for years on
the idea of making explosives obsolete and guns junk. If some one has
hit on a way of guiding an electric wave through the air and
concentrating power at a point, munitions-plants could be wiped out."
MacLeod looked anxiously from me to Kennedy, but Craig betrayed nothing
by his face except his interest.
"Sometimes I have imagined I heard a peculiar, faint, whirring noise in
the air," he remarked, thoughtfully. "I thought of having the men on
the watch for air-ships, but they've never seen a trace of one. It
might be some power either like this," he added, shaking the clipping,
"or like that which Mr. Jameson suggests."
"It's something like that you meant, I presume, when you called it a
'phantom destroyer' a moment ago?" asked Kennedy.
MacLeod nodded.
"If you're interested," he pursued, hastily, "and feel like going down
there to look things over, I think the best place for you to go would
be to the Sneddens'. They're some people who have seen a chance to make
a little money out of the boom. Many visitors are now coming and going
on business connected with the new works. They have started a
boarding-house--or, rather, Mrs. Snedden has. There's a daughter, too,
who seems to be very popular." Kennedy glanced whimsically at me.
"Well, Walter," he remarked, tentatively, "entirely aside from the
young lady, this ought to make a good story for the Star."
"Indeed it ought!" I replied, enthusiastically.
"Then you'll go down to Nitropolis?" queried MacLeod, eagerly. "You can
catch a train that will get you there about noon. And the company will
pay you well."
"MacLeod, with the mystery, Miss Snedden, and the remuneration, you are
irresistible," smiled Kennedy.
"Thank you," returned the detective. "You won't regret it. I can't tell
you how much relieved I feel to have some one else, and, above all,
yourself, on the case. You can get a train in half an hour. I think it
would be best for you to go as though you had no connection with me--at
least for the present."
Kennedy agreed, and MacLeod excused himself, promising to be on the
train, although not to ride with us, in case we should be the target of
too inquisitive eyes.
For a few moments, while our taxicab was coming, Kennedy considered
thoughtfully what the company detective had said. By the time the
vehicle arrived he had hurriedly packed up some apparatus in two large
grips, one of which it fell to my lot to carry.
The trip down to Nitropolis was uninteresting, and we arrived at the
little station shortly after noon. MacLeod was on the train, but did
not speak to us, and it was perhaps just as well, for the cabmen and
others hanging about the station were keenly watching new arrivals, and
any one with MacLeod must have attracted attention. We selected or
were, rather, selected by one of the cabmen and driven immediately to
the Snedden house. Our cover was, as Craig and I had decided, to pose
as two newspaper men from New York, that being the easiest way to
account for any undue interest we might show in things.
The powder-company's plant was situated on a large tract of land which
was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, six feet high and constructed in
a manner very similar to the fences used in protecting prison-camps in
war-times. At various places along the several miles of fence gates
were placed, with armed guards. Many other features were suggestive of
war-times. One that impressed us most was that each workman had to
carry a pass similar, almost, to a passport. This entire fence, we
learned, was patrolled day and night by armed guards.
A mile or so from the plant, or just outside the main gate, quite a
settlement had grown up, like a mushroom, almost overnight--the product
of a flood of new money. Originally, there had been only one house for
some distance about--that of the Sneddens. But now there were scores of
houses, mostly those of officials and managers, some of them really
pretentious affairs. MacLeod himself lived in one of them, and we could
see him ahead of us, being driven home.
The workmen lived farther along the line, in a sort of company town,
which at present greatly resembled a Western mining-camp, though
ultimately it was to be a bungalow town.
Just at present, however, it was the Snedden house that interested us
most, for we felt the need of getting ourselves established in this
strange community. It was an old-fashioned farm-house and had been
purchased very cheaply by Snedden several years before. He had altered
it and brought it up to date, and the combination of old and new proved
to be typical of the owner as well as of the house.
Kennedy carried off well the critical situation of our introduction,
and we found ourselves welcomed rather than scrutinized as intruders.
Garfield Snedden was much older than his second wife, Ida. In fact, she
did not seem to be much older than Snedden's daughter Gertrude, whom
MacLeod had already mentioned--a dashing young lady, never intended by
nature to vegetate in the rural seclusion that her father had sought
before the advent of the powder-works. Mrs. Snedden was one of those
capable women who can manage a man without his knowing it. Indeed, one
felt that Snedden, who was somewhat of both student and dreamer, needed
a manager.
"I'm glad your train was on time," bustled Mrs. Snedden. "Luncheon will
be ready in a few moments now."
We had barely time to look about before Gertrude led us into the
dining-room and introduced us to the other boarders.
Knowing human nature, Kennedy was careful to be struck with admiration
and amazement at everything we had seen in our brief whirl through
Nitropolis. It was not a difficult or entirely assumed feeling, either,
when one realized that, only a few short months before, the region had
been nothing better than an almost hopeless wilderness of scrub-pines.
We did not have to wait long before the subject uppermost in our minds
was brought up--the explosions.
Among the boarders there were at least two who, from the start,
promised to be interesting as well as important. One was a tall,
slender chap named Garretson, whose connection with the company, I
gathered from the conversation, took him often on important matters to
New York. The other was an older man, Jackson, who seemed to be
connected with the management of the works, a reticent fellow, more
given to listening to others than to talking himself.
"Nothing has happened so far to-day, anyhow," remarked Garretson,
tapping the back of his chair with his knuckle, as a token of respect
for that evil spirit who seems to be exorcised by knocking wood.
"Oh," exclaimed Gertrude, with a little half-suppressed shudder, "I do
hope those terrible explosions are at last over!"
"If I had my way," asserted Garretson, savagely, "I'd put this town
under martial law until they WERE over."
"It may come to that," put in Jackson, quietly.
"Quite in keeping with the present tendency of the age," agreed
Snedden, in a tone of philosophical disagreement.
"I don't think it makes much difference how you accomplish the result,
Garfield," chimed in his wife, "as long as you accomplish it, and it is
one that should be accomplished."
Snedden retreated into the refuge of silence. Though this was only a
bit of the conversation, we soon found out that he was an avowed
pacifist. Garretson, on the other hand, was an ardent militarist, a
good deal of a fire-eater. I wondered whether there might not be a good
deal of the poseur about him, too.
It needed no second sight to discover that both he and Gertrude were
deeply interested in each other. Garretson was what Broadway would call
"a live one," and, though there is nothing essentially wrong in that, I
fancied that I detected, now and then, an almost maternal solicitude on
the part of her stepmother, who seemed to be watching both the young
man and her husband alternately. Once Jackson and Mrs. Snedden
exchanged glances. There seemed to be some understanding between them.
The time to return to the works was approaching, and we all rose.
Somehow, Gertrude and Garretson seemed naturally to gravitate toward
the door together.
Some distance from the house there was a large barn. Part of it had
been turned into a garage, where Garretson kept a fast car. Jackson,
also, had a roadster. In fact, in this new community, with its
superabundant new wealth, everybody had a car.
Kennedy and I sauntered out after the rest. As we turned an angle of
the house we came suddenly upon Garretson in his racer, talking to
Gertrude. The crunch of the gravel under our feet warned them before we
saw them, but not before we could catch a glimpse of a warning finger
on the rosy lips of Gertrude. As she saw us she blushed ever so
slightly.
"You'll be late!" she cried, hastily. "Mr. Jackson has been gone five
minutes."
"On foot," returned Garretson, nonchalantly. "I'll overtake him in
thirty seconds." Nevertheless, he did not wait longer, but swung up the
road at a pace which was the admiration of all speed-loving
Nitropolitans.
Craig had ordered our taxicab driver to stop for us after lunch, and,
without exciting suspicion, managed to stow away the larger part of the
contents of our grips in his car.
Still without openly showing our connection with MacLeod, Kennedy
sought out the manager of the works, and, though scores of
correspondents and reporters from various newspapers had vainly applied
for permission to inspect the plant, somehow we seemed to receive the
freedom of the place and without exciting suspicion. Craig's first move
was to look the plant over. As we approached it our attention was
instantly attracted to the numerous one-story galvanized-iron buildings
that appeared to stretch endlessly in every direction. They seemed to
be of a temporary nature, though the power-plants, offices, and other
necessary buildings were very substantially built. The framework of the
factory-buildings was nothing but wood, covered by iron sheathing, and
even the sides seemed to be removable. The floors, however, were of
concrete.
"They serve their purpose well," observed Kennedy, as we picked our way
about. "Explosions at powder-mills are frequent, anyhow. After an
explosion there is very little debris to clear away, as you may
imagine. These buildings are easily repaired or replaced, and they keep
a large force of men for these purposes, as well as materials for any
emergency."
One felt instinctively the hazard of the employment. Everywhere were
signs telling what not and what to do. One that stuck in my mind was,
"It is better to be careful than sorry." Throughout the plant at
frequent intervals were first-aid stations with kits for all sorts of
accidents, including respirators, for workmen were often overcome by
ether or alcohol fumes. Everything was done to minimize the hazard, yet
one could not escape the conviction that human life and limb were as
much a cost of production in this industry as fuel and raw material.
Once, in our wanderings about the plant, I recall we ran across both
Garretson and Jackson in one of the offices. They did not see us, but
seemed to be talking very earnestly about something. What it was we
could not guess, but this time it seemed to be Jackson who was doing
most of the talking. Kennedy watched them as they parted.
"There's something peculiar under the surface with those people at the
boarding-house," was all he observed. "Come; over there, about an
eighth of a mile, I think I see evidences of the latest of the
explosions. Let's look at it."
MacLeod had evidently reasoned that, sooner of later, Kennedy would
appear in this part of the grounds, and as we passed one of the shops
he joined us.
"You mentioned something about rumors of poisonous gases," hinted
Craig, as we walked along.
"Yes," assented MacLeod; "I don't know what there is in it. I suppose
you know that there is a very poisonous gas, carbon monoxide, or
carbonic oxide, formed in considerable quantity by the explosion of
several of the powders commonly used in shells. The gas has the curious
power of combining with the blood and refusing to let go, thus keeping
out the oxygen necessary for life. It may be that that is what accounts
for what we've seen--that it is actual poisoning to death of men not
killed by the immediate explosion."
We had reached the scene of the previous day's disaster. No effort had
yet been made to clear it up. Kennedy went over it carefully. What it
was he found I do not know, but he had not spent much time before he
turned to me.
"Walter," he directed, "I wish you would go back to the office near the
gate, where I left that paraphernalia we brought down. Carry it
over--let me see--there's an open space there on that knoll. I'll join
you there."
Whatever was in the packages was both bulky and heavy, and I was glad
to reach the hillside he had indicated.
Craig was waiting for me there with MacLeod, and at once opened the
packages. From them he took a thin steel rod, which he set up in the
center of the open space. To it he attached a frame and to the frame
what looked like four reversed megaphones. Attached to the frame, which
was tubular, was an oak box with a little arrangement of hard rubber
and metal which fitted into the ears. For some time Kennedy's face wore
a set, far-away expression, as if he were studying something.
"The explosions seem always to occur in the middle of the afternoon,"
observed MacLeod, fidgeting apprehensively.
Kennedy motioned petulantly for silence. Then suddenly he pulled the
tubes out of his ears and gazed about sharply.
"There's something in the air!" he cried. "I can hear it!"
MacLeod and I strained our eyes. There was nothing visible.
"This is an anti-aircraft listening-post, such as the French use,"
explained Craig, hurriedly. "Between the horns and the microphone in
the box you can catch the hum of an engine, even when it is muffled. If
there's an aeroplane or a Zeppelin about, this thing would locate it."
Still, there was nothing that we could see, though now the sound was
just perceptible to the ear if one strained his attention a bit. I
listened. It was plain in the detector; yet nothing was visible. What
strange power could it be that we could not see or feel in broad
daylight?
Just then came a low rumbling, and then a terrific roar from the
direction of the plant. We swung about in time to see a huge cloud of
debris lifted literally into the air above the tree-tops and dropped to
earth again. The silence that succeeded the explosion was eloquent. The
phantom destroyer had delivered his blow again.
"The distillery--where we make the denatured alcohol!" cried MacLeod,
gazing with tense face as from other buildings, we could see men
pouring forth, panic-stricken, and the silence was punctured by shouts.
Kennedy bent over his detector.
"That same mysterious buzzing," he muttered, "only fainter."
Together we hastened now toward the distillery, another of those
corrugated-iron buildings. It had been completely demolished. Here and
there lay a dark, still mass. I shuddered. They were men!
As we ran toward the ruin we crossed a baseball-field which the company
had given the men. I looked back for Kennedy. He had paused at the wire
backstop behind the catcher. Something caught in the wires interested
him. By the time I reached him he had secured it--a long, slender metal
tube, cleverly weighted so as to fall straight.
"Not a hundred per cent. of hits, evidently," he muttered. "Still, one
was enough."
"What is it?" asked MacLeod.
"An incendiary pastille. On contact, the nose burns away anything it
hits, goes right through corrugated iron. It carries a charge of
thermit ignited by this piece of magnesium ribbon. You know what
thermit will penetrate with its thousands of degrees of heat. Only the
nose of this went through the netting and never touched a thing. This
didn't explode anything, but another one did. Thousands of gallons of
alcohol did the rest."
Kennedy had picked up his other package as we ran, and was now busily
unwrapping it. I looked about at the crowd that had collected, and saw
that there was nothing we could do to help. Once I caught sight of
Gertrude's face. She was pale, and seemed eagerly searching for some
one. Then, in the crowd, I lost her. I turned to MacLeod. He was
plainly overwhelmed. Kennedy was grimly silent and at work on something
he had jammed into the ground.
"Stand back!" he cautioned, as he touched a match to the thing. With a
muffled explosion, something whizzed and shrieked up into the air like
a sky-rocket.
Far above, I could now see a thing open out like a parachute, while
below it trailed something that might have been the stick of the
rocket. Eagerly Kennedy followed the parachute as the wind wafted it
along and it sank slowly to the earth. When, at last, he recovered it I
saw that between the parachute and the stick was fastened a small,
peculiar camera.
"A Scheimpflug multiple camera," he explained as he seized it almost
ravenously. "Is there a place in town where I can get the films in this
developed quickly?"
MacLeod, himself excited now, hurried us from the scene of the
explosion to a local drug-store, which combined most of the functions
of a general store, even being able to improvise a dark-room in which
Kennedy could work.
It was some time after the excitement over the explosion had quieted
down that MacLeod and I, standing impatiently before the drug-store,
saw Snedden wildly tearing down the street in his car. He saw us and
pulled up at the curb with a jerk.
"Where's Gertrude?" he shouted, wildly. "Has any one seen my daughter?"
Breathlessly he explained that he had been out, had returned to find
his house deserted, Gertrude gone, his wife gone, even Jackson's car
gone from the barn. He had been to the works. Neither Garretson nor
Jackson had been seen since the excitement of the explosion, they told
him. Garretson's racer was gone, too. There seemed to have been a sort
of family explosion, also.
Kennedy had heard the loud talking and had left his work to the
druggist to carry on and joined us. There was no concealment now of our
connection with MacLeod, for it was to him that every one in town came
when in trouble.
In almost no time, so accurately did he keep his fingers on the fevered
pulse of Nitropolis, MacLeod had found out that Gertrude had been seen
driving away from the company's grounds with some one in Garretson's
car, probably Garretson himself. Jackson had been seen hurrying down
the street. Some one else had seen Ida Snedden in Jackson's car, alone.
Meanwhile, over the wire, MacLeod had sent out descriptions of the four
people and the two cars, in the hope of intercepting them before they
could be plunged into the obscurity of any near-by city. Not content
with that, MacLeod and Kennedy started out in the former's car, while I
climbed in with Snedden, and we began a systematic search of the roads
out of Nitropolis.
As we sped along, I could not help feeling, though I said nothing,
that, somehow, the strange disappearances must have something to do
with the mysterious phantom destroyer. I did not tell even Snedden
about the little that Kennedy had discovered, for I had learned that it
was best to let Craig himself tell, at his own time and in his own way.
But the man seemed frantic in his search, and I could not help the
impression that there was something, perhaps only a suspicion, that he
knew which might shed some light.
We were coming down the river, or, rather, the bay, after a fruitless
search of unfrequented roads and were approaching the deserted Old
Grove Amusement Park, to which excursions used, years ago, to come in
boats. No one could make it pay, and it was closed and going to ruin.
There had been some hint that Garretson's racer might have disappeared
down this unfrequented river road.
As we came to a turn in the road, we could see Kennedy and MacLeod in
their car, coming up. Instead of keeping on, however, they turned into
the grove, Kennedy leaning far over the running-board as MacLeod drove
slowly, following his directions, as though Craig were tracing
something.
With a hurried exclamation of surprise, Snedden gave our car the gas
and shot ahead, swinging around after them. They were headed, following
some kind of tire-tracks, toward an old merry-go-round that was
dismantled and all boarded up. They heard us coming and stopped.
"Has any one told you that Garretson's car went down the river road,
too?" called Snedden, anxiously.
"No; but some one thought he saw Jackson's car come down here," called
back MacLeod.
"Jackson's?" exclaimed Snedden.
"Maybe both are right," I ventured, as we came closer. "What made you
turn in here?'"
"Kennedy thought he saw fresh tire-tracks running into the grove."
We were all out of our cars by this time, and examining the soft
roadway with Craig. It was evident to any one that a car had been run
in, and not so very long ago, in the direction of the merry-go-round.